Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

There's rightly a lot of talk about workforce shortages. For example it's estimated the aged-care sector is now facing an annual shortage of 35,000 workers just to meet the basic care needs of older people. Yet we have a potential workforce right here in Australia—people who want to work but are denied the ability to work. These are people seeking asylum who are waiting for an outcome on their application process. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre estimates 10,000 to 20,000 of the over 60,000 people here in Australia right now seeking asylum lack work rights. These people are ready to work but are denied the ability to work and begin to rebuild their lives because of successive governments' punitive regimes.

I've heard from one young woman who is seeking protection in Australia on gender and sexuality grounds. She has a MBA from an Australian university and prior to her application for protection she worked here, yet once she applied for protection she was denied her right to work and has had to rely on social service organisations to survive. This woman is desperate to work and to return to financial independence, yet she and many other people waiting for their application for asylum to be processed are being denied these rights.

In July this year the National Skills Commission revealed that occupations such as carer, health work and automotive trade work, among others, are in urgent need of workers. The ASRC has reported nearly half the people in its employment program have worked in these industries. So let's help fix the skills and workforce shortage by providing people seeking asylum the right to work. It will cost the government nothing and, more significantly, it is critical to people's human dignity and their social and economic inclusion.